Find out about current events and activities in and around Melbourne and Victoria. Also includes any exciting projects that Picture This Ballooning is involved with, and fascinating aerial projects from around the World.

Grand Final week is always an extremely special time to be in Melbourne with all the events and attractions happening leading into the blockbuster match on Saturday afternoon. This year was made even more special for our team as we were lucky enough to be involved with a number of opportunities during the week.

With Collingwood involved in the last day of September, there was a special buzz in our office due to the fact half our employees are mad magpies no more than our CEO Damian Crock. So with all this being said the opportunity to Fly Collingwood’s number one supporter ‘Joffa’ on the Wednesday with Channel 9’s Today Show was amazing. It’s fair to say live television really is nerve wracking but ‘Joffa’ and Today Show reporter Christine Ahern handled the broadcast from the clouds beautifully. The nature of Ballooning is interesting, you cannot set a time or location on anything as you are going with the conditions that is presented on the morning, however that being said Channel 9’s one demand was to be over the middle of the MCG at 6:35am for the live cross. Pete Wright our Chief Pilot absolutely nailed it to perfection, hovering directly over the middle of the MCG for the live cross with the hosts back in the studio. The exposure we received following this was great with stunning footage and shots taken by Channel 9 and Collingwood FC media team.

Channel 9’s Christine Ahern & Joffa moments before the live cross on The Today Show.

Thumbs up from Joffa on board!

The exciting week rolled onto Grand Final Day. With an early start for the team, meeting together at 1:30am for the Carlton Draught Pot Balloon MCG flyover at 6:30am with a number of Carlton Draught executives as well as Channel 7 filming the flight for their Grand Final Day broadcast. The flight took off from West Gate Park and headed towards Doncaster, straight over the middle of the MCG with thousands of phones capturing the moment from the MCC members line. This was a huge success and the shots taken from our Helicopter with experienced photographers and videographers on board are timeless. This was part one of Grand Final day completed, next was on to a Carlton Draught Pot tether in Yarra Park supporting the ‘longest kick’ competition.

Carlton Draught Pot Balloon with the MCG and city in the background, shot taken from the Helicopter.

We were confronted with quite difficult conditions at Yarra Park with wind gusts of up to 40km per hour. This proved challenging to keep the balloon steady at times while Channel 7’s Samantha Lane was filmed doing her ‘arrival to work’. Luckily Melbourne’s wind settled for a little while and it provided a calm entrance for Samantha Lane and Channel 7 were able to shoot her arrival beautifully. Following the filming, we unfortunately didn’t last too much longer tethered due to the wind. For safety reasons we ceased our tether around mid-morning, but everything out of the morning was executed to a tee.

Our team were welcomed and look after beautifully by Carlton Draught at the Front Bar marquee for the afternoon where we all enjoyed watching the match, unfortunately for many of our staff they left in tears and heartbroken. Better luck next year pies fans...